1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a color filter substrate for use in liquid crystal devices and other such electro-optical devices, and to a method of manufacturing such color filter substrate. The present invention also relates to an electro-optical device having such color filter substrate. The present invention further relates to electronic equipments such as a portable phone, a portable information terminal, or other electronic equipments configured to use such electro-optical device.
2. Background Information
It is common in conventional practice for color to be displayed by a liquid crystal device, an organic EL device, or other such electro-optical device. A color filter substrate is incorporated into the interior of such electro-optical device. This color filter substrate is formed, for example, by forming three coloring elements of R (red), G (green), and B (blue) on a base made of transparent glass so that they form a predetermined pattern.
There are three known types of liquid crystal devices. The first is so-called a reflective type liquid crystal device in which external light such as the sun light or room light is reflected internally within the device such that the reflected light is displayed. The second is so-called a transmissive type liquid crystal device in which the light is emitted by a cold cathode tube, LED (light emitting diode) or other light source and passes through inside the liquid crystal device. The third is a semi-transmissive-reflective type liquid crystal device that has functions of both of the reflective and transmissive type liquid crystal devices.
In both the reflective and semi-transmissive-reflective type liquid crystal devices, when the display uses reflected light to display image, the external light passes through coloring elements of the color filter twice, which increases color absorption and reduces the display brightness. To solve this problem, reflective type liquid crystal devices that have within the pixel area an uncolored region, in other words an exposed reflective film, have been conceived. Japanese Patent Application Publication 10-186347 in FIG. 1 and on pages 3-4 shows such reflective type liquid crystal device. In this liquid crystal device, the passage of bright light through the exposed region of the reflective film prevents the reduction in brightness of the color display.
In the liquid crystal apparatus disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Publication 10-186347, since an exposed reflective film is placed inside the black mask, in other words since the exposed reflective film is placed in a region that is separate from the black mask, the available areas for the coloring elements are reduced.
In view of the above, it will be apparent to those skilled in the art from this disclosure that there exists a need for improved color filter substrate and method of manufacturing a color filter substrate that overcome the problems of the conventional arts. This invention addresses this need in the art as well as other needs, which will become apparent to those skilled in the art from this disclosure.